The Why’s and Wherefore’s of Blog Tours

Please join me in welcoming ELF, aka The Reading Addict, a wonderful book review and blog tour host who is spending March helping us learn more about why to use blog tours to promote our works and how to do it right. Today, she will focus on the why’s and  the next Monday post will focus on the wherefores.

Thanks ELF, for sharing your insight!

 

Getting Noticed

First, thank you for trying to get the word out about your books. There are so many avenues to try that it seems impossible to figure out what the ‘magic bullet’ is. I have heard so many authors bemoan the time commitment required to do publicity when all they want to do is write the next story. That is understandable (and I sympathize because I can’t seem to find enough hours in the day to do everything I want to) BUT those authors who are most successful are ones that have the greatest reach.

Many authors have figured out that having street teams to help publicize their work (by writing reviews, telling their friends or strangers about their favorite new story, sharing new releases, requesting books at their local bookstore or library, etc.) gets the word out to the maximum number of people in the shortest amount of time.

Others have a newsletter that actually gets opened (often because it has a cute headline or a yummy picture or a giveaway). Some interact regularly on Facebook or Twitter or Pinterest. There are those who have great blogs that talk about topics of interest or have pictures of interest or recipes.

When trying to publicize your work, one avenue to try is a blog tour. You may take the extremely frugal route and try to do it yourself (make sure you have a LOT of time and patience) or you may wish to use an established company and avoid reinventing the wheel. Make sure that you look around the blogosphere and check out different companies, talk to your colleagues and find out what they have been most happy and most disappointed with, and find out whether they believe it has been a good return on investment. If you follow a particular blog or you notice an interesting post, visit the tour company or companies being hosted and take a look at the blogs participating in the tour.

Consider a tour not only a method of getting the word out about your book, but an avenue to earn new readers and maybe a reviewer or a street team member. If you notice a commenter who is particularly enthusiastic in the comments and is following the tour…consider whether to reach out and invite more interaction.

Selecting a Tour Guide

I’d use caution about offering a review copy to those who are commenting until I researched them a little more, but this would be an opportunity to get to know people and get feedback about your excerpts or posts.

If the blogger/reviewer (if you’re doing a review tour) is really complimentary, keep that name as a person to contact about a sequel—as long as you ASK before you send it or read the requirements that blogger has for submission. Don’t forget to thank the reviewer both by leaving comments and by ‘liking’ or giving positive votes on Goodreads or Amazon or wherever the review is posted. It gives positive synergy if you and your friends go by and support the review, and it can generate activity for the review.

Personally, I have hosted for about fifteen different companies but I work with Goddess Fish tours most often because I think they provide a polished product and they are great about follow-up. My perspective is as a host, and authors may have an entirely different opinion, so make sure you contact authors who have had tours there and ask them how they felt about it. If you have a blog yourself, you might consider hosting tours and increasing traffic to your blog that way in advance of using a tour.

Ideally, a group of colleagues will host each other and help cross-promote, but if you go that route, make sure that you can depend on those you choose to work with and that you provide reciprocity. You also may want to keep in mind that if you are only working with those you have in your own clique, you may be limiting your audience.

You also want to check out some of the blogs who are willing to host you. Do they seem to have a lot of traffic? Do they feature more than one title a day? Sometimes posts get lost in the massive number of titles a host is showcasing each day. What kind of giveaways seem to attract the most attention? Make sure you re, kind of giveaway you are offering, make sure you are prepared well in advance. Will you do interviews or guest posts? Make sure you have several so it’s not boring and repetitive if someone does follow the entire tour. Do you have several excerpts you can use? Do you have all of the information you need to disseminate?

Even though I am a procrastinator, it’s really important to me to have the information well in advance, and, if a review is needed, most of us need at LEAST 4 weeks, if not more, to have time to work the story into our piles and get it read and written up. So, if you are always frantically juggling, make sure you get everything together well in advance of the time you are going to need to provide it. (Maybe work on it while you are waiting for your editor to do the next edit!) It is REALLY frustrating to me as a blogger to be given information only a day or two before I am supposed to host, especially if there are a ton of links or titles being featured.

Pet Peeves

OH … and do everything with the tour company (at least when it comes to us — other companies may be different). I hate when authors contact a host directly for something. First of all, that’s what they’re paying us for and secondly, it’s hard for us to make sure everything is coordinated properly when that’s going on.  Ditto hosts contacting the author directly.  The tour company is the intermediary for a reason.

Make sure that you drum up an audience. Promote in the forums you belong to (on the appropriate days, if there are rules for that sort of thing), post on your social media, participate in chats and mention it, get your friends and family to go by, etc. Please do the hosts the courtesy of going by and at least saying hello or thanking them. Leaving a comment or responding to the visitors is always appreciated (although you may have to figure out how many ways you can respond to… “I liked the excerpt/cover/blurb” because that is often the default comment folks use to cover the requirements for entering the giveaway.) Yes, you are busy…but guess what? So are the folks who are hosting you, and you can stand out by taking the time to interact and thanking your hosts or reviewers and their visitors. Anecdotes that tie in to the comments or the blog’s theme are always great and will make you stand out.

Next Blog: The Why’s and Wherefore’s of Blog Tours – Blog Tour Elements

Finding ELF

My review and tour blog is http://thereadingaddict-elf.blogspot.com/ and you are welcome to come by and see what you think. Lately, I work primarily with a single company but I have been a host for about 15 of them over the years, so I have seen a lot of variation.

Gem of the Week

The Gem this week is my favorite blog tour organizer, Reviews by Crystal. Full disclosure: Crystal does assistant work for me, so I am partial. But I hired her as my assistant after she did a phenomenal job organizing a blog tour for me. And since then she has organized many, many more. She knows her stuff and she has a wide read with reviewers, bloggers and other authors. You want reach at a reasonable price? Reviews by Crystal is for you.

What to Read/Listen to Next

I am closely following Kirsten Oliphant’s success story as a fiction author. I have always valued her input helping authors and bloggers with marketing, branding and platform building at Create If Writing, but now I am devouring her podcasts about her steps to becoming a successful clean-billionaire romance series author. She’s knocking it out of the park. You may want to download her free planner and subscribe to her email list, or at least take a peek at last week’s podcast update, “How to Promote Your Book with Newsletter Swaps.” Newsletter swaps are just one of the methods she used to promote her books. Read the show notes, or listen along as she takes you step by step through what she did, what worked, what didn’t and even her sales numbers.